La Noche de la Lluvia Negra
La Noche de la Lluvia Negra, or the Night of the Black Rain (officially known as the Barranquilla Warehouse Massacre), was a massacre that took place on December 28, 1975, in front of a warehouse in Barranquilla, Colombia. Members of the Colombian cartel group Los Santos nearly destroyed rival gang Los Hombres de la Gabardina in a 12-minute shootout. Timeline December 27, 1975 Cormac Valdez in an effort to raise morale, demands the entire gang present for a smuggling operation. He has gotten "special permission" from Los Santos' ''to operate in their turf and plans to proceed accordingly. '''December 28, 1975 7:00 p.m. The men of Los Santos clear the area and (as was later revealed in newspaper reports) sicarios take position in alleys and in other storage buildings surrounding the warehouse where Los Hombres will pull their operation. 7:30 p.m. Valdez and Frederico Nuñez show up to brief the gang. They are there to move crates of arms into trucks and ship them down to a nearby dock, where they will be transported elsewhere. Valdez has agreed to turn over some of the profits to Los Santos, although he has no intention of doing so. A client from Los Santos ''shows up with a key to the warehouse and everything is ready to begin. '''7:45 p.m.' Operations begin, and the arms begin to be loaded from the warehouse onto trucks. The men work slowly and lazily, and the hot air keeps the tension low. Even Valdez and Nuñez are relaxed enough to ease away from hounding the men for their tedious progress. 8:30 p.m. Night falls. Things are still uneventful. 8:45 p.m. Gunfire breaks out. In the initial chaos, Valdez is killed most likely by chance and not as a high-priority target. The men of Los Hombres de la Gabardina attempt to recover from the confusion and return fire. Mauricio Orizaga returns fire with a light machine gun and manages to kill several sicarios. He manages to rally a few other men to fight back with him. Meanwhile, Nuñez has found a motorized scooter and flees into the night. 8:50 p.m. Police sirens approach the warehouse. The battle still continues even as police cars pull up. The sicarios and Orizaga's men ignore the demands of the police officers and are fired upon. Orizaga slips away in the darkness but his men still hold out. 8:57 p.m. Police finally shoot and kill a sicario. The rest of the hitmen take off from the scene. Any remaining Los Hombres members are quickly rounded up and arrested. They are too confused and demoralized to attempt to resist. As the cartel members are taken away, police begin to survey the scene. No arrests are attempted on any men of Los Santos or Los Hombres. Aftermath Nuñez was able to rebuild the gang with Orizaga's help (albeit with extreme discipline put in as a precaution against attacks from rival gangs). The warehouse where the massacre took place was shut down but Nuñez was able to buy permissions to the lot, access the warehouse, and lock in members of Los Santos who had authorized the hits. These members have never been let out, years later, and the entrance is guarded by armed men at all times. Every year on the anniversary of La Noche de la Lluva Negra, Nuñez and Orizaga hold a meeting that the gang attends. Speeches on discipline and loyalty are the center of these gatherings, but not one has been interrupted by rival gangs or law enforcement. Category:Gang Wars